


The Pit

by conceptofzero



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2447987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orion arrives late to the fights, as he always does. If he could miss them entirely, he would. But he made a promise to Megatronus a long time ago, and so he arrives, even if he arrives late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Pit

Orion arrives late to the fights, as he always does. If he could miss them entirely, he would. But he made a promise to Megatronus a long time ago, and so he arrives, even if he arrives late. 

Long before he sees the hole in the earth that makes up the fighting pits, he hears the awful endless howl of the audience echoing up and pouring out of it. The sound is like a living thing, hungry and furious, the cry of ten-thousand bots as they watch sparks snuffed for entertainment. Orion hates the sound but he doesn’t shut down his auditory system. He made a promise to Megatronus, and this is part of it.

Around the top of the pit, bots who can’t afford seats are able to crouch at the edge and try make out the fight happening below their feet. There’s no fence here, nothing to keep any illegal spectators safe. Orion’s never seen anyone fall, but he’s seen the crumpled bodies at the bottom of the pit. They’re swept up with the rest of the scrap and hauled off to be melted down. No one cares what happens to them anymore than bots care about what happens to the fallen gladiators. 

Orion finds the openings in the ground that lead down into the heart of Cybertron, and to the lower levels of the fighting pit. Bots are packed tight here, nearly spilling out onto the stairs, crammed front to back and pressed against the shoddy fences that make up the only protection the top four levels have. Once he descends past those, things change. Here are the paying seats, and here they stand with room between their shoulders, enough space for each bot to see the fight. 

He walks down and down. Each level grows more opulent as the prices grow higher, and the security grows stronger. Force fields guard the lowest spectator level, to prevent any from trying to force their way in and steal from those who’ve paid dearly to watch from that level, or those like Orion who have been invited. He waits on the other side of the field as they check his ID, security eyeing up Orion’s dulled paint job and the gentle scratches on his shoulders from Megatronus’ hands. When they let him through, it is reluctantly. 

The seats here are well-shaped and lined with gold inlays, and waiters walk to and fro with energon cubes, offered freely to any who pass by. Orion takes one when the tray passes but does not eat it. He holds it in his hand, noting how Megatronus has been carved out of the cube. Around him, senators and captains of industry eat cubes in the shapes of gladiators and chat among themselves, looking idly out on the bloodstained floor of the pit. 

There is plenty of room to stand here at the front of the box and to look out at the area floor. They are low enough that energon sometimes splatters against the glass. The roar of the crowd is dulled by the enclosure and the stink of burning metal is quickly cycled away by the air vents until nothing remains. Orion presses a hand to the glass and watches, looking for Megatronus. 

He’s taking on two bots at once, his arms and chest covered with energon. Orion can’t tell if it’s Megatronus’ or the other bots, or from those already lying dead on the ground. His spark pulses when Megatronus reaches out and crushes one bot’s head with his hand, ripping it clean off the next moment and holding it high for all to see. The violence repels him, but Orion can barely look away when Megatronus does it, his optics drinking in every frame. He moves so gracefully when he fights, like a predacon of old. His claws rip and his fists smash and he carves open the torso of the other bot he’s fighting, crushing the spark in his bare half. The howl of the audience is so loud that even the soundproofing in the lowest level can’t drown it out. Every single bot in this area screams, venting their combined rage and grief to the skies. 

Except here. Except the bots around him. Some look out the windows at Megatronus with mild interest. Most others talk among themselves. The bots above their heads are trapped by the caste system, most doomed to live and die within the same dozen kilos. They aren’t meant to know the world around them. Those bots are fodder for the vast machines that keep Cybertron running, and they will be crushed and melted down and will offer up their sparks all so the bots standing in this room with Orion can enjoy their delicately carved cubes of energon and laugh while bots like Megatronus fight to the death in the background of their lives. 

Beside him, a popular senator leans against the glass, face turned away from the battle. Megatronus raises his arms, dripping energon as he calls on his next opponents, and the senator doesn’t even look his way. He laughs and puts a cube of energon in his mouth. It looks like Shockwave, and the bot bites the cube’s head off. 

Orion hates them. He does not like the emotion, but he does not deny that’s what lurks in his spark. He hates every last bot in this box and those above, those who are able to pay to watch the lowest castes fight and die, secure in the knowledge that even if the pit were to be shut down, they would never face any punishment for having supported the illegal deathmatches. Only the gladiators and the lowest of the low would fear. 

Megatronus looks away from his battle, eyes sweeping the boxes and stopping when they fix on Orion. He smiles then, not the vicious grin he saves for battles, but the amused shine he saves for when he and Orion are alone and debating the proper course of action to take. It’s quick and gone in an instance when Megatronus has to return to the fight, but for a moment, it is just him and Orion in this place. He spreads his palm against the viewing surface and keeps his other fist tightly wrapped around the energon cube. 

When the battle ends, he will wait for the rest to leave and descend lower still, to the gladiator bunks below the fighting floor. Megatronus will be there and Orion will help the others wipe the energon from his body and patch his wounds. There may be a funeral then for some fallen gladiator, or maybe a speech or a rallying cry. When that is done, when they are alone, he’ll present Megatronus with the energon cube and tell him what he saw and heard the senators say in the lowest spectator level, and together they’ll make a plan for a new Cybertron. 

One day, Orion won’t have to arrive late when Megatronus asks him to visit him. One day, this pit will sit quiet and empty, forgotten by all others, all but Orion and Megatronus.


End file.
